Predicting the dreamer’s gender from a single dream report: a matching study in a non-student sample

Michael Schredl, Katja Becker, Elisa Feldmann

Abstract

Research has demonstrated stable gender differences in dream recall and dream content. Previous matching studies using student samples showed that the judges were able to correctly match the dreamer’s gender based on a single dream report with a probability better than chance. Using dream reports from a non-student sample only slightly increased the accuracy of matching gender despite the fact that the differences relating to waking life environment should differ more for the older sample of this study. Overall, accuracy results were of small effect size. It must be concluded that making a valid prediction of a simple characteristic of the dreamer, like gender, requires more dream material. For the clinical praxis, it would be interesting to study the accuracy of dream interpretations quantitatively.